


Wife and Mistress

by ljs



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:19:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2591480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set between the end of Series 8 X 12 "Death in Heaven" and the teaser for the Christmas special.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Assume that there is a rebel Time Lord who has just sustained the unhappy loss of yet another dear companion (at least this time it being a mutually dishonest leave-taking rather than exile to the other side of the Void, exile to a time he can’t reach, or a mind-wipe). Assume further that this rebel Time Lord, once he’s repaired his TARDIS from the impact of angrily heartbroken Time Lord’s fists on the console, does what he does best.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>Run, in other words.</i></p><p> </p><p>This is what happens next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wife and Mistress

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Жена и любовница](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3068117) by [Teado](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teado/pseuds/Teado)



Assume that there is a rebel Time Lord who has just sustained the unhappy loss of yet another dear companion (at least this time it being a mutually dishonest leave-taking rather than exile to the other side of the Void, exile to a time he can’t reach, or a mind-wipe). Assume further that this rebel Time Lord, once he’s repaired his TARDIS from the impact of angrily heartbroken Time Lord’s fists on the console, does what he does best.

Run, in other words.

Assume one more thing – that, once happening upon the prison-planet Carceros with its tyrannical Superintendent destroying what was once a gorgeous view of yet another shrubbery-planet and provoking an insurrection, the rebel Time Lord unsurprisingly gets involved in said insurrection against the Superintendent.

Grief making him a bit careless, however, the rebel Time Lord – well, it’s the Doctor, no need to be coy – gets caught by the Super’s executive guards. He is given a cell with a giant slug-like fellow prisoner, a truly horrific beating, and a death sentence. When he makes the mistake of muttering Scottishly “Again? How boring,” the Super decides that the Doctor has but six hours to live.

The condemned Time Lord is allowed one final communication with the outside worlds – because, says the Super in a very suave manner, “I’m not a monster.” (She totally is. Anyway, moving on.) The Doctor, irritated and sad and a tiny bit concussed, sends out a text to his dead wife.

_In trouble, honey. Wish you were here. I always wish you were here._

The text travels in its mysterious spatial-timey-wimey way through the universe and rings a mobile belonging to the very much alive Professor River Song. She’s in the middle of teaching an introductory class at Luna University, and it is _very_ bad form to answer a mobile when lecturing, but then she is still a bad, bad girl at heart. She reads the text, sighs, and dismisses class early with an extra reading assignment. She then hurries home, checks the TARDIS diary to make sure the forthcoming rescue hasn’t already happened, and fetches her vortex manipulator out of the bedside table.

In a different part of the universe, the text is intercepted – something about routing all communications for the Doctor to this other communication device, the work of obsessive love, whatever. A Time Lady who somehow has survived her own most recent disastrous attempt to re-connect with her ex reads the text, sighs, and takes another sip of wine red as her smiling lips. Her vortex manipulator is already on her wrist.

“I’m coming, sweetie,” River says as she’s inputting coordinates.

“On my way, dear boy,” Missy says as she does the same.

In his prison cell, the Doctor twitches although he doesn’t know why.  
…………………………………………………………………..

The capital-punishment area of Carceros’s most secure political prison is a beige, badly lit, labyrinthine Brutalist edifice set in a space very like a quarry. The Doctor is being held in the most secure cell, next to the Super’s office, dead (if you will pardon the word) center of the building.

Waking up from a slight headache-induced nap, he blinks rapidly and then assesses the giant slug-like prisoner shackled to the opposite wall. “Hello there,” he says. “I’m the Doctor. And you are?”

The slug squelches a reply.

“Herbert! Well, certainly, why not. Good to meet you, Herbert,” the Doctor says. “Now how do we get out of here?”

Squelch.

“Impossible? No, no, that’s not the spirit. There’s always a way out. And if I could just get up….” He tries to stand, but the shackles are too tight. And of course the guards took his screwdriver, so ridiculously predictable.

What they don’t know is that after that slight near-death experience with Clara on the planet with the desert piranhas, he has carefully sewn a folding lock-pick into the lining of his coat. He works his hands around until his fingertips touch the already raveling seam – 

“What are you doing, Doctor?” comes the amplified voice of the Super from the surround-sound speakers of the cell. (She has often tortured prisoners by playing extremely loud music from the universe’s worst artists, or selections from reputedly good artists but without auto-tune. The effect is much the same.) 

The Doctor looks up and smiles. “Oh, nothin’. Yoga.”

Squelch-squelch-squelch.

“Language,” the Doctor says absently, and slides the lock-pick out of its hiding place.  
…………………………………………………..

River locks onto the TARDIS homing signal, activates the manipulator, and arrives in the depths of the prison’s storage facility, where at the moment two guards are attempting to force the TARDIS door.

“Oh, I wouldn’t,” River says, striding up to them. Then, while they stand there fumbling for their guns, she stuns them both with the device she has hidden in her palm. As they collapse, she says cheerfully, “Just count yourself lucky that I’m coming to fetch my old man. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been on stun.”

The TARDIS all but hums at her, and, smiling, she lays her other hand flat on the blue door. “I have a key in my pocket, but -- do let me in, dear.”

The door swings open.  
………………….

Her very official boots up on her desk, the Super is eating popcorn and monitoring the Doctor’s movements in the cell. He does seem to be making progress, which she feels is an excellent provocation for torturing him before a public drawing-and-quartering, both of which activities she would greatly enjoy.

Even as she sets her bowl of popcorn on her desk, however, she freezes. There’s a very unpleasant tingle at the base of her spine – 

“Hi, hi, hi,” says a breathless voice at the Super’s ear. “I’m Missy, and I’ll be your murderer this evening.”

“What?” The Super tries to reach out for her intercom, for her gun, for anything, but she finds herself held fast in a highly scented embrace.

“You really shouldn’t lock up my boyfriend. That’s my privilege,” Missy says, and then spins the chair around and blasts the Super right over the heart. The result is a pile of ash on the desk chair and the surprisingly forest-green carpet.

Missy takes a deep, savouring breath, and then glances at the monitor – where the Doctor has just gotten to his feet, unshackled. “The boy’s quicker than you’d think, looking at that delicious silver hair,” she purrs. “Time to go collect him.”

But then the sound of the TARDIS’s brakes shriek-groan, and Missy’s eyes narrow dangerously.  
…………….

The Doctor turns when he hears his TARDIS. “What?”

Herbert squelches urgently at him, and the Doctor just waves a hand. His eyes are fixed on the opening of the cell door and – “River.”

All the longing of a thousand lonely years reverberates through the cell.

She stops on the threshold. Her gaze is fixed on the Doctor. After what seems like an eternity (but is only approximately 2.73 seconds), she says, “Hello, sweetie. Love the new look.”

“River?” he says again, as the myriad reasons she should not be here, he should not be staring at her, their timelines should not cross again, jostle in his head. (It hurts. He really does have a slight concussion.)

But she’s there, saying under her breath “Damn the timelines,” and then stealing what’s left of his breath with a kiss.

He will later blame the concussion for the way he lets himself go, but it has little to do with head trauma and everything to do with the aches he’s not let himself acknowledge for longer than he would care to think. His hand tunnels under her hair to grab her nape, his other hand pulls her body into his, and he tries to warm himself with her presence –

“Oh, you must be the wife!” Missy says brightly. Murderously.

Her hand on her stun-gun, River turns in the Doctor’s arms. “I am,” she says. “And who are you?”

“I’m the Mistress,” Missy announces with a dazzling smile.

A pause to let that sink in; silence, and just a bit of confused squelching from Herbert.

Then River shoots the Doctor a glare over her shoulder. “Husband, we may have an open relationship, but this is _not_ on.”

“We have an open relationship?” he says, then, “No, no, shut up, shut up, that’s not important.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” she snaps.

“I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to me.” However, even as he moves her just a bit behind him, he’s still going – “The thing is, River, when she says she’s the Mistress, she doesn’t mean –“

“Oh yes I did,” Missy says.

But River sighs, just a beat behind. “The Master has regenerated into a female form, obviously.” He mutters something under his breath about everyone picking up on that fact before he did. She says, “Don’t be stupid, sweetie. I mean, haven’t you learned what she does to you?”

“Make his life oh so much more interesting? Remind him of who he has been?” Missy says.

“No. You hurt him. And that is unacceptable.” River steps free, and she is the woman who has shown no mercy to those who do hurt him.

Herbert, who is not the object of River’s attention, nevertheless shrinks gloopily into the furthest corner of the cell. Missy, who is said object, takes a step forward rather than back. “Oh, I see why he likes you,” she says. Then, in a growl, “But hurt is part of any good relationship. Also I gave him an army to conquer the universe. What can you give him, wifey dear?”

“I stopped time for him, and I’d do it again,” River says. “Oh, wait, that’s not a spoiler, is it?”

“No, I knew,” the Doctor says. His hand goes to hers.

Missy sighs. “Oh well. Actually I just wanted to let you know, darling boy, that I’m still out here. Totally not dead, totally waiting for you!” Her smile is shark-like. “Do negotiate your boundaries before I see you again, all right? Toodles!”

The silence when she goes is epic – other than a renewed squelching from the corner.

Then from outside comes a clamour of guards waking up. “Best be going,” the Doctor says. “Let’s just free Herbert and leave without much more ado.” At an interrogative squelch, he adds, “No, Herbert, I expect we can let everyone else out too. Missy’s likely done your job with the Super, she likes to start at the top and work down.”  
………………………………..

Once free of Carceros and various and assorted victorious insurgents (and having collected the sonic screwdriver), the Doctor and River find themselves alone in the console room of the TARDIS.

She takes a turn smilingly surveying the space. The Doctor leans against the console, watching her move. He might look casual, but he is holding onto the console so hard that his fingertips are white. Finally she says, “I love what you’ve done with the place. Looks a little like my study at home, in fact.”

“Yes,” the Doctor says.

She leans on the upper railing, her hands clasped in front of her. She too has whitened fingertips from her grip on herself. “I shouldn’t be here, should I.”

“No,” the Doctor says.

Shaking out her curls, she surveys him as she has done the space. “We really shouldn’t cross these timelines?”

He swallows hard. “Spoilers.” The word sounds wrong in his voice.

“Do you remember your text?”

He blinks, then – “Sorry, headache. You mean the one I sent from prison?”

She rolls her eyes. “That really could cover _so many_ situations, sweetie. But yes, this most recent one.”

His gaze on hers, he quietly recites, “ _’In trouble. Wish you were here. I always wish you were here.’_ ”

“The line wasn’t secure.”

“No,” he says. “Not my line, on the other hand.”

“Are you still in trouble, husband?”

“Yes.” As she starts to come to him, he puts out a hand. “But, River, it’s not your problem.”

“Not any more,” she says softly, as if confirming a guess.

He says nothing. He can’t speak. 

Lightly she runs down the stairs to him, comes to him, pins him against the console. His hands go to her waist as if compelled, and the TARDIS hums under her and him, around them, inside them.

“I can spare a few hours, sweetie. Want to break the rules?” she whispers.

He’s a rebel Time Lord. Of course he does.  
…………………………………….

Hours later, alone in a darkened console-room, the Doctor sits. He isn’t brooding, exactly, but it’s a very close approximation. He’s turning his ring around with his thumb, over and over, telling the stones of those he’s lost, those he’s loved.

He and River had broken rules and re-negotiated boundaries, as it were, first in the arm-chair on the upper level, then in the hallway on the way to the library (which was where they had been actually going until she’d touched the small of his back, meaning to distract him), and finally on a library ladder against the shelves holding the Encyclopedia of Gallifreyan Facts and Figures, 150th edition. But then she’d kissed him, and told him she was so glad to have seen this face, and left without another word.

He has bruises in places that haven’t had these kind of bruises in a thousand years. Also, his head still hurts, almost as much as his hearts.

He used to run so much faster than he does now, he thinks. He used to be so sure of what he knew.

He's rather glad he knows he's an idiot now.

Assume that there is a rebel Time Lord with a dead wife who sometimes shows up when he least expects her, a Mistress who does the same, and no companion to keep him steady. Assume that at the exact moment his mind goes to Clara, there’s a knock on the door.

Assume that he answers it. Assume that he holds those he’s lost in his hearts. Assume that he keeps learning. 

Assume he always and ever runs.


End file.
